


The Prompt Machine: v.IronFalcon

by singingwithoutwords



Series: The Prompt Machine [3]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Cooking, Domestic Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Rain, mention of injuries and torture, natasha can sense people breaking the compound code of conduct
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-12 01:34:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17458097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singingwithoutwords/pseuds/singingwithoutwords
Summary: Tumblr prompt: IronFalcon fluffWarning(s): none





	1. The Way to a Billionaire's Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr prompt: IronFalcon fluff
> 
>  **Warning(s)** : none

All of Tony’s homes had kitchens.  No self-respecting architect would design a house or apartment without a kitchen.  Tony owned eight private kitchens in three countries, but for the longest time none of them saw much use beyond making coffee and storing takeout.  The closest Tony came to a regularly used kitchen was the one on the Avengers common floor, which was only technically his.

Then he met Sam.

Sam, who was worse than Steve about mother henning, but better than Steve at making Tony not resent being mother henned.  He’d gotten fed up with Tony not attending team meals and taken it on himself to feed Tony at least once a day, however he had to.  This apparently included invading his private floor - yes, it still counted as invading even if he had the codes and explicit permission to be there - and making annoyingly cute distressed noises over the lack of food in his kitchen.

Somehow, Tony’s kitchen became stocked.  Tony learned quickly that if he went more than a day without anyone seeing him eat, Sam would turn up in his kitchen and  _make_ him eat.  And that meant that Tony maybe kind of went out of his way to hide his meals from the team, because that meant seeing Sam more often.

Which meant he liked Sam.

Which meant he was screwed.

Tony’s instinctive reaction to realizing how royally fucked he was in regards to Sam was to cut off all contact, move back to California, lock himself in his workshop, and stay there until his feelings got ahold of themselves.  But that meant not seeing Sam, and his stupid feelings made it clear that was not allowed to happen.

So he stayed.

* * *

It had been a long day, and it was way past normal dinnertime when Tony finally collapsed onto a chair at the kitchen table, pulling his tie off with one hand.  Sam was already at the counter, presiding over a crockpot (he owned a crockpot? when did that happen?) of something that made the entire floor smell amazing.  He glanced over his shoulder with a smile that made Tony’s heart beat faster.

“Rough day?” he asked.

“You have no idea,” Tony said with a groan.

“Poor you,” Sam said, bringing a steaming bowl over to the table and setting it in front of Tony.  “Eat up.”

“I love you,” Tony said, reaching for the spoon.  “Marry me.”

Sam laughed, going back to the mysterious crockpot and serving himself a bowl, too.  “Careful with that kind of talk, Mr. Stark- a girl could take you seriously.”

“ _If only,_ ” Tony said feelingly, because he was tired and distracted and Sam made him feel safe enough to drop his brain-to-mouth filter.  He didn’t even realize what he’d said until his mouth was full of beef and onion, and it was too late to turn it into a joke.

Sam froze in the act of sitting down across from him, looking poleaxed for a second before he sat down the rest of the way.  Tony wondered frantically if he could make it to the elevator before Sam caught him.

Sam cleared his throat, shifting in his chair.  “Well,” he said, “marriage might be a bit much, but I do know a diner that makes great burgers.”

Tony’s brain failed him for the second time in as many minutes.  “Are you asking me out?”  Sam nodded.  “Why?  You don’t like me, not like that.”

Sam actually looked offended.  “You think I cook every day for just anybody?”

“Well- I mean- no?”

“Damn right, I don’t.  So am I gonna get an answer?”

“Yes,” Tony said immediately.  “Yes, absolutely, I would  _love_ to go for burgers with you.”

“Good,” Sam said, grinning.  “Just, uh… maybe we  _don’t_  tell the team how we’ve been pining over each other instead of opening our big fat mouths?  I don’t think they’d ever let us hear the end of it.”

Tony groaned again.  “God.  Yes.  Deal.  They can never know.”

Sam laughed.  “Eat your stew, babe.”

Tony felt his cheeks warm with a flush of pleasure, and he refocused on his forgotten dinner.

Made by his boyfriend.

A guy could get used to this.

(When he remembered to ask in the morning, Sam had no idea where the crockpot had come from, either.)


	2. Worse Bad Days

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr prompt: hurt/comfort
> 
> **warning(s):** references to loss of limbs, dysphoria, brief mention of torture

 

There were days when it hurt to fly.  Not physically; his wings were Stark-made, the very best available maintained by the man himself, and he sometimes forgot they weren’t the ones he was born with.  He rarely even got phantom pains anymore. But some days Sam was all too aware that his wings were fake, that they weren’t really  _ his _ , that he’d lost his wings and Riley all at once and was never getting either back, and every downstroke felt like someone tearing out his soul.

On those days he couldn’t bear to take his morning flight with Steve, couldn’t bring himself to even glide short distances.  He confined himself to walking, when he could drag himself out of bed at all, wings stiff and mechanical and perfectly still.  He’d tried taking them off completely, but that only made it worse, so now he kept them on and dealt with it.

Today was a bad day.  Sam had managed to force himself to get up and somehow found his way to his balcony still wrapped in a blanket.  He curled up in the wide, shallow nest there and stared out over the city, just letting time slide by without touching him.  He knew he was scheduled to train with Natasha, but he couldn’t stand looking at her narrow, perfect,  _ natural  _ wings with every organic feather in its place.  Not today. He’d explain it tomorrow. She’d probably be cool with it.

He wasn’t sure how long he’d been lying there when he heard the balcony door slide open behind him.

“Go away, Steve,” he said without looking.  The last thing he needed was Steve trying to cheer him up.

“Close, but no dice- would you like to spin again?”

Sam twisted to look behind him- sure enough, there was Stark, leaning against the door with his arms crossed.

“Jarvis said you were out here,” Stark said, pushing away from the door.  His own wings, flashy red-and-gold ones that matched his armor, were nowhere to be seen.  He looked so small without them. “Bad day?”

Sam nodded.  If anyone could understand, it would be Stark.  He’d left his real wings behind in Afghanistan, been rescued with infections along the ruined bases and scars that made it clear they’d been deliberately cut off.  It didn’t take much to imagine his bad days being as bad as Sam’s, in their own way.

Stark sighed, sitting on the edge of the nest.  He didn’t say anything, just sat there staring out at nothing with Sam.  He didn’t even fidget. If anyone who knew him could see him now, they’d be amazed.

Usually being around people on bad days rubbed him raw inside, like sandpaper on his brain.  It felt like an intrusion at best and a violation at worst. It was different, though, with Stark just sitting there, knowing.  Not guessing or understanding, but  _ knowing _ .  It was… comforting, in a morbid sort of way.  Stark knew what it was like. Stark had lived it.  He had those memories, that specific sort of horror and pain.

It made Sam feel a little less alone.

Sam didn’t know exactly how much time passed before he noticed that Stark was shivering slightly; wrapped up like he was, Sam hadn’t noticed how cold it was, and Stark just had on jeans and a shirt.

“Hey.”

Stark glanced over, and Sam lifted a corner of his blanket in invitation.  Stark hesitated a moment, then slid into the nest and up against him. It was weird and surprisingly difficult to get settled without a second pair of wings to account for, but they managed, lapsing back into silent stillness.

The afternoon wore on into a sunset that, to a slightly less numb pair of minds, was probably spectacular, and evening descended on the city.  It was full night by the time Sam felt like moving. Tony had dozed off with his head on Sam’s chest, and grumbled about being woken up but still climbed off him and helped him up.

Sam bundled his blanket into a ball and followed Tony back inside.  He felt… not necessarily better, but maybe a bit less unsettled. Enough that he felt like he could stomach eating, at least.

Tony stood for a minute in the middle of the living room, hands in his pocket, looking anywhere but at Sam.  “So,” he said, sounding loud and uncomfortable after so much silence. “I guess I’ll leave you alone now.”

“You don’t have to,” Sam said.  “I was about to force myself to eat.  Might be easier with company.”

Tony looked at him sidelong, practically out of the corner of his eye.  “You sure? I don’t want to intrude. Any more than I already have, anyway.”

“Very sure.  As long as you wanna be here, I’m fine having you.”

Tony’s shoulders relaxed slightly, and he pulled his hands out of his pockets to hook his thumbs through the belt loops instead.  “That sounds pretty appealing,” he admitted.

Sam found it in him to smile.  He headed for the kitchen with Tony trailing after him.  They talked while he cooked- about team business, about team gossip, about television and movies and the latest pop hits and anything and everything but their wings.  Tony wound up staying until nearly midnight, and Sam found himself tendering an invitation to hang out as he walked him to the door.

Sam put the kitchen to rights and climbed back into his unmade bed with a slightly lighter heart and a blanket that smelled vaguely of motor oil and ozone.

All in all, he’d had worse bad days.


	3. Like The Rain

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fictober prompt: rain
> 
>  **warning(s):** none

When Tony slipped outside at just past two in the morning, the sky was overcast.  This far from the city, that actually made the sky dark, blocking out the stars without glowing sooty orange-grey with reflected light.  It was lonely but also comforting, as if nothing existed beyond Earth, and therefore nothing out there could hurt them.

He shivered, wishing he’d stopped to grab a jacket, but didn’t even consider going back inside as the first fat drops splattered onto the deck around him.  He closed his eyes as the clouds opened up, quickly soaking his hair and clothes, making him shiver harder but doing nothing to make him want to be back inside.

Part of him felt like he should hate rain.  It was water, after all, a potentially infinite amount of it, and he still had trouble with baths and swimming specifically because they involved large quantities of water.  But rain was different. Even the most torrential downpour didn’t call up the same fear in him as a sink full of water. Rain was safe.

He didn’t know how long he stood there in the rain, relaxed despite his shivering, before the door opened behind him.

“Babe,” Sam said, sighing hard enough to be heard over the rain.  “Get your dumb white ass back in here. You _know_ your immune system is compromised to fuck and back.”

Tony opened his eyes and turned.  Sam was barefoot and also still in his jammies, but he’d thrown on a raincoat in case he had to leave the doorway, and he was giving Tony a look Tony would swear he learned from Pepper if he hadn’t seen it used on Steve before Sam and Pepper ever met.

“It’s raining,” he pointed out completely unnecessarily.

“I know it’s raining,” Sam said.  “That’s why I want you inside. Where it’s dry.  And warm. And I don’t have to get wet to smack you upside the head.”

Tony laughed, walking back to the door.  Sam backed up to let him in and also avoid letting Tony touch him.

“No kisses for wet idiots,” Sam said, stripping off his still-dry raincoat and hanging it back up, snagging a towel and tossing it at Tony.  “First dry off, _then_ you get kisses.”

“Ooh, negotiations,” Tony said, catching the towel and applying it to his hair.  “Counteroffer: _we_ dry me off, and kisses happen at the same time.”

“Then what’ll we do once we’re back in bed?”

“I’m sure we’ll be able to come up with something, Mr. Wilson.”

“I’ll admit I’m intrigued, Mr. Stark,” Sam said, stepping closer, then jumping back when the overhead lights flicked on.

“No roleplaying in the common areas,” Natasha reminded them sternly, looking incredibly deadly despite wearing pants covered in rubber duckies that she’d obviously stolen from Steve.  “We wrote up the Compound Code of Conduct for a reason.”

“We wrote up the Compound Code of Conduct because you like alliteration,” Tony disagreed.  “Everyone else was fine with house rules.”

“Take it to the bedroom, or else,” was all Natasha replied before flicking the lights off again and vanishing back down the hall.

Tony and Sam glanced at each other and grinned.  “I second Ms. Romanov’s suggestion,” Sam said.

“Leave me out of it!” Natasha called from somewhere out of sight.

The both laughed but obeyed.  Tony did get help drying off, and also plenty of kisses, along with other stuff they’d agreed not to do in common areas.


End file.
